


Baccano!: Claire Stanfield Drabbles

by Rush_That_Speaks



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, FTM Claire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rush_That_Speaks/pseuds/Rush_That_Speaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire and names and identity: meditations on unasked questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (                )

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Numinicious as a Yuletide Treat in 2008.

( )

He doesn't think of himself as having a name anymore, and he wonders sometimes if he ever did. In the circus, he had a different name at least once a season, a name suitable for whichever temporary troupe were using the rickety trapezes and ancient rings this year, a name that said he was one of the Flying Martellis or the Goulevitch Aerialistes, discarded when the troupes moved on. (Hey, kid, didn't I see you with the-- no, you didn't, sir, the high-wire man is my father.)

None of those names were Claire, or Stanfield, or Vino, whose unspoken surname is Gandor.

There's always, he supposes, Rail Tracer, but that's not going to work as a day-to-day handle, among people he needs not to be afraid.

But he doesn't find himself thinking of a new name, only of new aliases, new things to leave in hotel registers, new things to say to busboys, new words that pop like soap bubbles, here one moment and gone as soon as spoken.

It might be because of Chane, or Chane might partly be because of this. After all, whatever name he might or might not carry, he's never going to know what name she uses when she thinks of him.

And Chane defines him to his own satisfaction with nothing more than a look in her eyes and the angle of her chin: but you can't sign a check Chane's Husband.

Maybe he'll translate that into some other language, and shift it around a little. Maybe that alias would last him a season.

Maybe he doesn't care enough to bother. Right now he is nameless in the world, and happy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written as a fill in Kanata's Transfic Mini Fest.

After they get married Chane asks him why he still uses the name Claire Stanfield. He has several others that are just as good or better. Rail Tracer, that one is a legend. Vino Gandor, that's a good one, a name which can terrify hotel clerks and make people accept dubious checks anywhere the Mob has ever operated.

He thinks back to an adolescent summer spent learning the tightrope, and, more importantly, learning how to walk again. Weight goes here, feet a little apart to disguise the hip curvature. He learned to keep his shoulders moving naturally even when the bandages around his chest were killing him. He copied a roustabout's lazy I'm-not-working-right-now saunter. He copied the shell game man's open, honest smile. He tried to copy his brother Luck's slim dignity and got adolescent insouciance, but by the end of the circus season he knew the rest were minor details, because he'd gotten the thing he was really looking for.

He smiles at Chane and tells her about the first time he introduced himself by the name he'd been born with, hello, I'm Claire Stanfield, and could see this thought (and no other one) flash through the heads of every single person present: wow, that's a funny thing to name a boy.


End file.
